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I happen to have just done some research on this, so I thought I'd share the key points. Let me know if anyone has any questions, corrections or further info.

Number of cars sold
There have been as few as about 200 electric cars sold in Chile so far (in total, ever). It may be higher including commercial vehicles. It started in 2011 with the Mitsubishi I-MiEV, and more recently the Hyundai Ioniq and Nissan Leaf (which cost around 20 million pesos) and the BMW i3 (even more expensive) have accounted for most of the sales. Renault have also sold some amongst others. They had one, the Fluence ZE, on sale for 13.6 million pesos, but we called them and they said they sold out (that meant they sold 2 ). I don't think that price included the battery.

I think all of these are pure electric. I haven't really been looking at hybrids.

Electric cars are currently selling at a rate of about 1% of all new vehicles sold globally, but in Chile it is not even at 0.1%.

Charging points
There are about 35 charging points in the entire country, most of them in the greater Santiago area with a focus on Eastern neighbourhoods such as Las Condes. There are several in the area of Vina del Mar/ Valparaiso, 1 in Rancagua, 1 in San Antonio and 1 in Los Andes. Outside of this central area, there is 1 in Coquimbo and 1 in Antofagasta. Heading south there is 1 in Concepcion and 1 in Osorno. Of course, you could not use these charging points to drive from Santiago to the south or north. They are too far apart.
EDIT: January 2018. Copec has added fast (about half an hour) charging points (Voltex) and you can now drive from Santiago to Concepcion. There are charging points every 100km or less. Maps at: https://ww2.copec.cl/voltex
EDIT 2: January 21st, 2018: Unclear if these are already in place or just planned.

It is a bit hit and miss using the charging stations at the moment, according to reports from users. Sometimes they are open 24 hours and work right away, other times it is a bit of hassle to get it working, other times it's not working at all. Many of them are free to use.

The October 4th post on the first of the Facebook links below has a map of them. This is pretty up to date right now, but it's changing constantly. Some of them opened in recent months. EDIT 3: Map here: 21-Jan-19. Map here: https://(link cloaking)/ybldnbd5 May include some Copecs that are planned but not open.

I think an electric car only makes sense as part of a complete makeover of the auto industry and personal transportation solutions. Meaning it's gotta be one car for your entire lifetime or the better part of it. Only then you're really helping the environment etc. The consequences of such a radical change are impossible to compute, unless you're living in a planned economy. Therefore, right now in Chile you're better off with a small diesel that you buy used and run into the ground.

The 200 cuicos who purchased their new fashionable electric toys here don't mean a thing.

I'd be much more interested to know how the roll out of the BYD electric buses going in Santiago.

Yeah there are simply not enough charging stations. I drove from Santiago to region 9 last weekend and I think I saw that 1 charging station in Rancagua. It was out of service I think.

Unless you are always and only going to be tooling around urban Santiago all electric are non starters.

But you can get Priuses for under 10mil all day long and they pull 50mpg+
After that the Lexus CT200h...pulls almost 40mpg, but I really don't appreciate the styling of the ct200h. There are Lexus IS and GS and RX hybrids but the RX's have this bad vehicle acceleration control problem where they surge unexpectedly. The IS and GS hybrids just aren't available in chile it seems.

For best mileage and value, and viability the Prius seems to be king...after that a diesel car can get 40mpg or a Lexus ct200h gas hybrid. After that its diesel SUVs or gas hybrids in the 30s.

Electric cars for taxis in Santiago make sense, because they are doing a lot of mileage so it can be economic, and some taxi drivers will be quite happy to have an extra, legitimate excuse to refuse long distance fares and pass you on to the next person instead. Some of them prefer to stay in Santiago area.

Buses also work because you just have to put charging points in the bus stations and give the bus enough to charge to do 1 loop or one return trip. Again, buses also probably do high mileage so like taxis the higher up front investment is worth it given petrol savings.

Cars are a bit trickier however I'd like to suggest that the government ought to be able to make sure that there are charging points built from La Serena to Puerto Montt which covers much of the population. Actually why not include Valle Elqui, a little past La Serena, and Chiloe for tourism reasons. So according to google that's 1813km from Vicuna in the Valle Elqui to Quellon, the last main town marked on the map in Chiloe. 1 electric charging point every 100km, so that's 19 locations. Perhaps 38 locations to get one each side of the motorway. They need to be the faster chargers (20-30 minutes for a full charge) and they need to have a person on site at every site during the day who can fix them. Once a) such a project is completed and b) there are electric cars closer to 10 million (whether second hand or due to future subsidies) I think I would buy one, but those are my two barriers at the moment.

I want to drive to La Serena/Valle Elqui and Lakes Regions for holidays in the next 2 years. After those holidays, I might consider buying a pure electric car. Maybe 3 years+.

Looks like it's going to have to be a hybrid or regular car until then.

Electric cars for taxis in Santiago make sense, because they are doing a lot of mileage so it can be economic, and some taxi drivers will be quite happy to have an extra, legitimate excuse to refuse long distance fares and pass you on to the next person instead. Some of them prefer to stay in Santiago area.

Buses also work because you just have to put charging points in the bus stations and give the bus enough to charge to do 1 loop or one return trip. Again, buses also probably do high mileage so like taxis the higher up front investment is worth it given petrol savings.

Cars are a bit trickier however I'd like to suggest that the government ought to be able to make sure that there are charging points built from La Serena to Puerto Montt which covers much of the population. Actually why not include Valle Elqui, a little past La Serena, and Chiloe for tourism reasons. So according to google that's 1813km from Vicuna in the Valle Elqui to Quellon, the last main town marked on the map in Chiloe. 1 electric charging point every 100km, so that's 19 locations. Perhaps 38 locations to get one each side of the motorway. They need to be the faster chargers (20-30 minutes for a full charge) and they need to have a person on site at every site during the day who can fix them. Once a) such a project is completed and b) there are electric cars closer to 10 million (whether second hand or due to future subsidies) I think I would buy one, but those are my two barriers at the moment.

I want to drive to La Serena/Valle Elqui and Lakes Regions for holidays in the next 2 years. After those holidays, I might consider buying a pure electric car. Maybe 3 years+.

Looks like it's going to have to be a hybrid or regular car until then.

Apparantly there is a plan to have all charging stations cities between stgo and puerto montt in the very near future. I agree in theory with most of what you say, but I am not sure about Chiloe, it seems hard to justify, yes there are rich people that have property there that might spend the summer down there, or own land for tax purposes, but the average Chilote can barely afford a rusty old LUV pick up that belches out toxic emmsiions, its a big jump up to an electric car from that. They are a special breed in Chiloe, the have a very "poor me", victim mentality down there (apparantly the government doesnt give them enough things) they would probably expect the government to give them an electric car and a bono to go with it, thats a huge generalisation I know but most things are.
My other question is, doesnt Chile need a shit tonne more renewable electricity in their grid before they start promoting the use of electrc cars? otherwise its just transfering the problem elsewhere, i.e if everyone starts charging their electric cars then that energy is still coming from Chiles grid which is still very reliant on burning fossil fuels, unless the charging stations are going to be powered by renewables ?

In the Lakes Region Chile for 6 years. It looks like New Zealand in some ways, and is nearly at the bottom of the world too, but there the similarities end.

My other question is, doesnt Chile need a shit tonne more renewable electricity in their grid before they start promoting the use of electrc cars? otherwise its just transfering the problem elsewhere, i.e if everyone starts charging their electric cars then that energy is still coming from Chiles grid which is still very reliant on burning fossil fuels, unless the charging stations are going to be powered by renewables ?

The renewables may be coming, but they're gonna cost more. Lets see if all the ecologists still want to put their money where their mouths are....

Renewables may increase or decrease energy prices. In some parts of the world, wind power is already is the cheapest energy source (apart from maybe coal). It depends. It's going to be hard to predict since prices are volatile especially oil and gas.

When we compare the cost of green vs dirty energy, we often don't consider the externalized costs. How much is it costing for the hospitals to treat people sick with air pollution, how much will it cost in aid to feed people in the Sahel who might lose cropland due to global warming. How much is it costing to respond to disaster events which are becoming more common, possibly due to global warming? How much is it going to cost to build seawalls if sea levels rise? How much is the loss to tourism when the fossil fuel companies move on and leave destruction from digging and mining in their wake? How much does it cost to clean up an oil spill etc?

Even if renewables are more expensive, are we willing to pay more if we won't cause as much suffering to others?

Regarding the back up factory in the photo above, I actually think it's a good idea. Instead of shutting down coal plants, we should keep a few open and just not use them except in very occassional situations, say if there happens to be very low wind and sun power, and at the same time unusual high demand. If coal is 10% of the capacity of a network, but is only used 1% of the time, then its only going to be a fraction of 1% of the actual energy consumption, so associated carbon emissions are low.

However, if you spread your wind power around the country, have a mix of different types of renewables, and have pipelines connecting you to neighbouring countries, you are going to have the energy you need. In a renewable world, you need to have a little spare capacity.

Apparantly there is a plan to have all charging stations cities between stgo and puerto montt in the very near future. I agree in theory with most of what you say, but I am not sure about Chiloe, it seems hard to justify, yes there are rich people that have property there that might spend the summer down there, or own land for tax purposes, but the average Chilote can barely afford a rusty old LUV pick up that belches out toxic emmsiions, its a big jump up to an electric car from that. They are a special breed in Chiloe, the have a very "poor me", victim mentality down there (apparantly the government doesnt give them enough things) they would probably expect the government to give them an electric car and a bono to go with it, thats a huge generalisation I know but most things are.

The charging stations in Chiloe would be to help with tourism there rather than local people to use. Imagine you are considering buying an electric car in Santiago but you think to yourself hmm but what if I want to drive to Chiloe for holiday one day. You don't want someone not buying an electric car because they might want a holiday in Chiloe. If the network covers Chiloe (south) and Valle Elqui (north), then it covers anywhere that a person would reasonably be expected to drive on holiday. If you want to go much further south or north, you are going fly.

I am not suggesting poor people in Chiloe should buy electric cars for now, they can't afford it.

In any case Chiloe is not that important, I'd settle for Puerto Montt for now.

What do you know about the plan of charging stations Santiago to Puerto Montt? Any sources you can share, government statements, or just rumours?

My other question is, doesnt Chile need a shit tonne more renewable electricity in their grid before they start promoting the use of electrc cars? otherwise its just transfering the problem elsewhere, i.e if everyone starts charging their electric cars then that energy is still coming from Chiles grid which is still very reliant on burning fossil fuels, unless the charging stations are going to be powered by renewables ?

First of all, keep in mind that charging stations will only account for a minority of the electric power used by a car. The majority of charging is usually at home or work so it will be grid based.

Chile's electricity grids are currently at about 0.4kg CO2e/kWH. Pure electric cars can do about 0.35kwH/mile. So per mile electric cars in Chile are doing 0.14kg (140 grams) of CO2e/mile.

A typical petrol car, doing say 27 miles per gallon, is causing 415 grams of CO2e per mile driven. That's three times as much. That means that electric cars in Chile are reducing their carbon footprint per mile by two thirds.

If you compare the very best hybrid, that's about 50 miles per gallon, they are putting out 225 grams of CO2e per mile. So, if you switched from such a car to a pure electric car in Chile, you would still be cutting CO2 by about 40% per mile.

If the charging stations are done with solar panels, that will help a little and reality will be slightly better than above calculations, but for the above assume charging stations are on the grid also or used for only a small minority of charges.

These numbers are all a little bit debatable since each car (both electric and gas) varies in efficiency, and the carbon intensity of Chile's grid is constantly changing a bit, and there are some variations I've never been able to explain between some different sources in terms of what the carbon intensity of Chile's grid actually is.

However what's clear is that the CO2 impact of electric cars is less. Calculations for the US showed that even in heavily coal burning states, where the carbon emissions per unit electricity was well above average, it was still somewhat worse for the environment (in Co2 per mile) to drive a gas/petrol car than an electric one.

The other factor to consider is that buying an electric car is also an investment for the next several years. If the savings (on CO2) are 67% per mile today, it may amount to 70%-75% over the lifetime of the car.

Of course, you could put solar panels on your house and use those to drive your electric car. With that, your CO2 per mile savings are even better.

The other thing is that petrol/gas and diesel cars are causing air pollution within cities. If you live in a city the argument for an electric car is even stronger than if you live in the sticks since any air pollution caused in the production of the electricity for the car will at least be far away from population centres, whereas fuel cars release their emissions right onto the heaviest concentration of people.